Voter after voter, turnout heavy in Capital Region

At UAlbany and in nearby counties, polling places accommodate crowds

Updated 10:23 pm, Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Eager University at Albany students swarmed the Campus Center on Tuesday to cast their ballots.

The line of students waiting to vote approached 100, spilling out of the Assembly Hall polling station and snaking around the Campus Center. Some students waited as long as 45 minutes, and members of the College Democrats handed out slices of pizza to encourage them to stay in line. The 10 boxes of pizza ran out in under an hour.

By 3 p.m., 700 ballots had been cast electronically, and hundreds more affidavit ballots were filed by students from areas hard-hit by Superstorm Sandy who could not get home to vote. The College Democrats said that in the nine days leading up to the voter registration deadline, they registered nearly 1,000 new voters on campus.

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"This is more of a turnout than I ever expected," said Carol Hamill, a poll worker at UAlbany. "They're turning out for sure."

In past years, students have voted in their individual quads, but this year polling was centralized at the student center, prompting the long lines, Fox said.

At the Albany County Board of Elections, the line was 20 deep on Tuesday afternoon. Many of those waiting were students who had problems with their registrations.

Republican Elections Commissioner Rachel Bledi said officials are in for a long road reviewing all the affidavit ballots filed.

She said many of the downstate students who voted by paper ballot claimed to be covered by Gov. Andrew Cuomo's executive order allowing downstate voters to vote anywhere in the state in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

All students voted at a central location, rather than separate polling places like in past years, Bledi said, because some of the old polling sites are under construction.

Sophomore Teresa Castillo had already waited in line for a half-hour when she reached the line's halfway point. She remained undeterred: It was her first time voting.

"I'm really excited; I'm a big Obama fan," she said, flashing her voter registration card and hiding an Obama T-shirt under her jacket.

"I don't think I can wear this in there, but I wanted to show my enthusiasm," she said.

Across the Capital Region, polling stations reported high voter turnouts.

By late afternoon in Schenectady County, it was apparent that voter turnout would be nearly as high as for the record-breaking 2008 presidential election.

At Schenectady High School, with six election districts, poll workers said voters began lining up at 5:45 a.m. They estimated that 50 percent of registered voters had cast ballots by late morning, on track for a higher voter turnout than any year prior.

In Rensselaer County, Board of Elections officials also estimated that turnout was high. By late morning at the polling station at the Melrose firehouse on Route 40 in Melrose, 300 of 900 registered voters had gone through.

A high number of affidavit voters boosted voter turnout in Rensselaer County. At the polling place in the county government building in Troy, inspectors said they were flooded with affidavit ballots. An early morning mix-up that initially steered all Rensselaer County affidavit voters to Troy was in part the cause of the voter surge.

"I'm impressed," Maila Niemi said after casting her ballot. "So many people from so many diverse lives are on line to vote,"

At the Clifton Park-Halfmoon Library, poll workers said that by 1 p.m., 200 of the 700 registered voters had cast their ballots. They were expecting a 50 percent turnout, better than most previous elections, but not as many as in 2008.

"This is one of the more important elections that I've been a part of," said Bob Boran, 65, a Clifton Park resident who said he cast his vote for Mitt Romney. "This year there's a clear choice to be made."